Eshe stood and peered into the darkness. Khatijah joined him. The sky was only getting darker the farther north they went, and the moons were tracking lower in the sky.

“Might be something,” Eshe said. “Specs?”

She dug a pair out of her pack and tossed them over. Eshe donned the specs. If he still couldn’t see anything, she’d call Kage over.

“Looks like two… three people. Hard to say who they are. Just burnouses. Pretty standard.”

“How are they walking?” Drucians had a peculiar gait.

She saw him chew at his lip. A new thing, that. She didn’t like it—appeared too much like indecision.

“There are a good number of nomads up here,” Eskander said. “If I had to bet, I’d say it was some of their scouts. We must have lost those mercenaries by now.”

“Eshe?” Nyx said.

“They’re heading northwest now. If we just lie low, we should miss them.”

“Then let’s do that. Huddle up. Eshe, keep an eye on them. I want you to take first watch tonight. I’ll do second.”

“I can do second,” Ahmed said.

“I didn’t ask your opinion,” Nyx said. He had been volunteering for quite a few watches, as of late.

Nyx bedded down with the others. They kept their circle pretty tight. She didn’t want anyone wandering off or conspiring after dark. The circle let her keep an eye on all of them at once.

Most nights, Nyx didn’t think she was going to sleep, not until her head hit the sand and the world bled away like some bad dream.

When she finally put her head down, she was out.

Sleep was like water, which was a good thing, because Nyx couldn’t seem to find enough of it. Nyx dreamt often of water—vast pools of water so cold and clear that she could see the ruins of old cities there. They always seemed close enough to touch, even though she knew they must have been thousands and thousands of strokes away.

Dreams were her only escape out here, so when she started awake some time later, she resented the intrusion. She glanced around to see what woke her, but the camp was quiet. She counted every bed, and all were accounted for but Eshe’s. When she turned, she saw him standing three paces away on top of the sandy ruin of some kind of massive container, peering into the night.

“Eshe?” she said. “You see something?”

“I’m… not sure. Did you hear something?”

“Fuck, kid, am I on watch or are you?”

She slipped out of her bedroll and joined him on the rise. What she saw not a hundred paces distant was something she couldn’t quite wrap her head around.